5 Golden Rules: Passion

You don’t have to have passion to post something well-written. A trained, talented writer can cover nearly any topic. But blogging isn’t about “covering topics.” It’s fairly easy to pick out the bloggers who have passion about what they’re writing and the bloggers who are running their site because they want to make money with it. Passion is essential. After all, most of us start blogging because we want to get away from doing a job we hate. There are a lot of easier ways to make money if you don’t care about loving your job!

But I’m rambling…let’s look at what some much-smarter-than-me bloggers have to say about the topic of passion.

Chris is the poster child for doing something unconventional with your life (he even has a book about it), but in this post he gets pretty real about the chances you actually have to succeed doing something you love. Not everything can become a business. If that was true, I would be making money laying on the beach with a glass of wine and a book. Writes Chris:

Whoever your prospects, customers, or clients are, they have to identify with what you do and believe it can be possible for them as well. That’s why you work to find the magic convergence between your passions and what customers will pay for. (I go on and on about this in my business work—if you have the Empire Building Kit, I’m sorry for repeating myself. But, I repeat myself: you have to meet a clear need or solve a real problem for the people who pay you. This is critical!)

In fact, the more you can focus on other people’s needs and understand how they overlap with a skill you enjoy sharing, that’s where the real follow-your-passion model gains potential.

Who among us hasn’t wanted to say that to a boss at some point or another. This post by Tyler Tervooren isn’t actually a post in the traditional sense, but rather his announcement of a completely free ebook you can download from his site. Called Take This Job & Shove it: A Riskologist’s Guide to F*** You Funds. From the post:

This 10,500 word guide is completely free (actually, it pays you $100 to read it) and I wrote it for anyone who’s sick of their job and ready to quit and do something more meaningful but needs help making the transition without freaking out about money.

You don’t even have to give your email address to snag a copy, so there’s no reason not to head over and pick up this guide! While you’re there, check out the rest of Advanced Riskology and find Tyler on Twitter @tylertervooren.

I met Dave rather randomly at BlogWorld 2010 – and I’m so glad I did! Not only did I have an amazing burger (seriously, it was totally yum), but we had a great conversation over dinner, and I’ve enjoyed reading his blog since then. He wrote this post in response to the idea of making a choice to pursue your passion. Not everyone has that opportunity. From the post:

Take a moment and take stock of all the amazing projects you have been part of. Write them down. Look at them. You’ve probably have done a lot more than you think. This is your passion lifeline. It shows you how your passion (or lack thereof) has dictated the path you’ve chosen.

We are all passionate about something, and these are the days of opportunities. Take your passion and make it a reality, because there has never been a better time for it to happen.

In my opinion, passion and experience are both important if you want to be successful on any career path – but you can gain experience over time. Passion is something that you can’t learn; it comes from within you. In this post, Collin Vine talks about the two. Writes Collin:

If you want to be an entrepreneur and don’t have any experience, it doesn’t matter. Find your passion. Apply yourself. Say Fuck it. Reach out to others. Look for opportunities. Passion beats experience.

I have a confession to make. When I was compiling links for this series, I had another post I wanted to put in this spot. As I was actually writing it, though, I went back and read that first post (from a different blogger) and thought, “You know what? I don’t really know if that’s advice I want to pass on.” I’m all for debate and varying opinions, but it just didn’t sit well with me.

So left without a fifth post, I decided I was going to explore the list of blogs I have bookmarked to “check out when I have time.” You know, the list that gets ten links added to it for every one I actually check out. And I clicked on “How To Get A Grip” – a blog I first discovered because its owner, Matthew Kimberly, did an interview with BlogcastFM.

I think I’m in love. It’s puppy love, of course, just like you’ll always find at the beginning of a new relationship, but love nonetheless. And he recently posted something that I thought would be perfect to share with you all about passion. This post isn’t about going on some grand question to find your true calling in life or quitting your job to start your own business – at least, it isn’t on the surface, though you could say that those are some of the underlying messages. But really, it’s about the little things. The things that make your day happy. DO THEM. From the post:

This isn’t about hedonism, or dietary irresponsibility. Eat your greens, but if it’s a day when you’re going to have pecan pie anyway, eat it first. If you choke on your spinach, at least you’ll do it with a sugar rush and contented dessert-eating grin on your face.

You have a responsibility TO YOURSELF to make sure that your day includes a decent quota of chocolate muffins, dirty sex, brandy, rock-climbing and assorted fun stuff.

I seriously just made my roommate listen to me as I read the rest of this post aloud, along with three or four other posts from How To Get A Grip. Then he got annoyed because he was in the middle of doing stuff and I was laughing like a damn five-year-old. In other words, I think you should check out this blog, and follow @mjkimberley on Twitter.

Feedback

You’re welcome! How to Get a Grip has been my blogging crack the last day or so. Totally love finding new blogs that are so great, but it’s always also frustrating because I wish I had unlimited time to read people’s archives! Anyway, glad you found someone new too – thanks for writing a blog worth sharing!

Thank you very much for including me in this great company of blogs, and thank you for introducing me to some new bloggers as well. I appreciate your kind words about my writing. We’ll have to have a conversation over burgers again soon. Take care!